Day 4 - Disney's Magic Kingdom

Since I raved sufficiently about Magic Kingdom in the last post, I am not going to repeat that again here. Day 4 was one of those short days where we decided not to have the second entry to the park, instead decided to catch a longer sleep, & hit the pool in the hotel. It was also one of those days where the afternoon rain continued until late evening & killed the excitement.

As planned earlier, we reached the park at 9AM promptly after the sumptuous breakfast & hit the Fantasy Land. Since we had spent a good 4 hours in the same park last evening, we were pretty much comfortable with the layout & have even thought of where to go & what to see. We started off at Ariel’s grotto where my little mermaid met the Disney’s little mermaid – Ariel. She was in a shock for a minute (never expected a competition with the real look & feel), and then was a little shy to talk to the real Ariel. After a photo-shoot session with Ariel, we decided to move on to see the Snow White’s Scary Adventures – This was a dark ride where people rode in small cars though a location with visual effects where the scenes from the Story of Snow White are depicted. One particular scene that sent a chill in the spine was at the final stages where the evil queen trying push down a large boulder down on to you... just before the lightning strikes her down, and that – was scary! We went on to see the Many adventures of Winnie the pooh (Another dark ride with a story of Winnie, Tigger and their friends) before heading towards the Mad Tea Party.

The Mad tea party was fun & it is probably the one that little one enjoyed the most. We were all sitting in the small cars shaped tea cups and it starts rotating. The speed & direction of the spin of the cup can be controlled by the individual riders of the cups & believe me, it was real fun! Little one wanted to get onto it again & even went on to stay in the queue again. It took a while for us to explain to her that there are many more things she will miss, if she decides to hang on to just one ride. Little one came up with me to ride a racing cart on the Tomorrowland Speed Way & the interesting part was that she was managing the steering wheel & I was in charge of accelerating & breaking! It was really funny that after a little while, she lost interest in driving & wanted to just get off the car because of the bumpy ride. We went on to see one of the most popular attractions of the park then – It’s a small world. It is also the name of one of the very famous Disney tunes. It has probably become so famous because they play it continuously as a background score in the theme park. The ride features a large number of audio-animatronic dolls (~450 in number) in the style of children of the world, frolicking in a spirit of international unity and singing the ride's title track promoting a theme of global peace. In the 15 minute ride which you sail on a small boat, you probably come across most of the cultures in the various countries across the world.

We decided to have our lunch in the Columbian Style Harbor restaurant on seafood delicacies & some rest before heading off to the Mickey’s Toontown Fair. The Mickey’s Toontown Fair was probably the most crowded place inside the park, especially because they house the attractions such as Mickey's Country House, Minnie's Country House, Goofy's Barnstormer, and Donald's Boat. This place stood the testimony for children that the characters like Mickey & Minnie really do exist and you are actually visiting their home while they were away in the Court House meeting their friends, taking photographs & signing autographs. We went on to see Minnie’s house – the living room, her kitchen, study and the backyard. What amazed me most was the attention to detail that the designers had – in building the house, linking each and every aspect of the design to the stories that they had published earlier as books & animation films.

It was almost 2 PM by that time and the heat had already started to take its toll on us. But little one was very energetic with ‘Give me more!’ attitude. So, we went on to the Goofy’s Barnstormer which is a covered play area for children and let little one discover and play there while I & SH decided to sit in a corner bench watch her making new friends & playing together. She played for almost half an hour & from her face we could make out that she is dead tired and will crash down anytime. We took the WDW Railroad train from the Toontown station to Mainstreet USA and then the Monorail to the Ticketing Center & the Tram to the parking lot to drive back to our hotel for our nap. Little one already went to sleep in the Monorail (we weren’t surprised!) and it had already started raining by the time we reached the hotel.

It was still raining when we woke up at 5 and then we decided that we will stay back for the rest of the day rather than driving ourselves too much to fall sick & ruin the vacation. A nice time in the swimming pool and a home-made dinner followed.

End of Day 4!